Ruins of Autumn

41• You're Thinking Wrong.

 
    "Ania."
 
    "Come in!" she replied with her nerves obviously in pieces, and Visara opened the door slowly with reluctance.
 
    "You haven't changed your clothes yet?" Her sister thought, affected by her sharp and bitter look, that it would be better not to disturb her too much since she seemed enraged. "The tea is ready."
 
    "I'm coming."
 
    "Can I ask for something?"
 
    Anila's impatient look asked her to speak quickly.
 
    "I would like to come with you to the company the next time you have an event. I'm very curious to see the new environment up close."
 
    "OK."
 
    Visara quickly left the room before Anila could change her mind.
 
    Anila took the phone with the black case from her bed and turned it on with her trembling hands, scared that she would get any notification from Sidoreli.
 
    Until those moments, nothing.
 
    She went to Instagram to deactivate her account for that day, so when he searched for her username, the account wouldn't come up. The next day, she would change the username of her account, and life would go on without a problem.
 
    Her finger accidentally touched the notification icon instead of her profile, and she read the notification that had come from Instagram about Sidoreli's account. Intuition told her to go to his profile, and, without further questioning, she did and saw that he had deleted the liked post by her a while ago and had made the account private.
 
    Because of her?
 
    Had he really found out that Anila had visited his profile and, to keep her as far away from him as possible, he had acted in that way?
 
    Her self-demoralisation reached another level, and she immediately began to plan how she would never leave the house so as not to negatively affect people anymore.
 
    She had to leave that company first.
 
    She got out of bed and took off her black shirt to put on a baggy T-shirt and cotton tracksuits.
 
    Maybe the Instagram thing wasn't as exaggerated as she thought, and that was why she started to consider staying in the current job for some time and then considering judging the situation more clearly. Perhaps there was another explanation for the changes to Sidoreli's Instagram account.
 
    She put on her black slippers and left her room. The silence in the house, except for the sound of the TV, plunged her deeper into sadness. The image of hearing a baby's voice and the fragile joy, at least for a few moments during the day, succeeded in luring her to imagine more about how beautiful it would be to have a baby in her family's midst. Her parents would love the child, who had the right to ask for that love, without being criticised for wanting to be spoiled, knowing their condition, and they would probably be able to live with less pain from the past thanks to that innocent creature. 
 
    Marriage. This was the solution. She would find someone who she didn't love, but she would have enough respect for him; she would pretend so that he wouldn't feel the lack of love from her; and she would create a family with him. Their child would bring the missing vitality and healing home.
 
    She thought the company would be a good place to get to know someone since most of the employees came and worked in the bar of the building on the first floor, so she decided not to wear black to the next meeting but other colours for the sake of her mission. When she had the baby in her arms, she would be convinced that the action was worth it.
 
••••
    Visara was shocked, as if she had seen an alien spaceship, when her sister came out of her room on the day of the next company event, wearing candy brown trousers and a white shirt, the beige bag on her left arm, her hair held back with a brown hairpin, and a few strands to the side of her face. She had also chosen to wear white high heels.
 
    "Are you going to make us any more late?" she asked Visara with one raised eyebrow and took out her phone to look at the clock.
 
    "Actually, you caused the delay, but... this justifies enough." Visara motioned her whole body, and they left the house.
 
    Anila liked the compliment she received and thought that it would be easy for others to notice her.
 
    And that Sidoreli... if he had really thought that she liked him, he would understand if he would be at the company that day and see her, that he should feel lucky for getting her attention.
 
    She was trying to hold on to that mindset of self-esteem so as not to get bogged down by overthinking the negative events that could threaten her if she attracted the attention of the wrong people.
 
    He was talking to some employees when she entered the hall with her sister, and her boss was next to Sidoreli, talking to three other colleagues. 
 
    "Good afternoon," Anila approached Ilirjana's group together with Visara, and the employees made room for the two newcomers.
 
    Anila looked, without having to turn her head completely to the right, at Sidoreli next to her and heard him when he told his sister that he was leaving and would wait for her at the company bar after the meeting was over.
 
    "Sidorel, she is minding her own business. She has nothing to do with you." Alketa gave her opinion. "I think you know you are misunderstanding her, but you are deliberately misunderstanding her."
 
    Anila waited impatiently to know his clarifying answer to the fiery doubts that they were talking about her, but he stunned her even more by avoiding her sister and only saying emphatically for Alketa to text him when she got out of the meeting.
 
    Dazzled, as if she had been left without a shield against the blazing midday sun, and unable to think, she was staying silently next to Visara and thinking about Sidoreli's reaction to her presence. He had felt so uncomfortable that he immediately wanted to get away from her, causing the suspicion that, if he stayed, Anila would think that he wanted to stay next to her, and with that departure, he was telling her that something like that wasn't true.
 
    Now she was also feeling more embarrassed with herself than Sidoreli felt because of her, and she thought about how to convince him that he was mistaken in suspecting that Anila liked him. She had just looked at him casually, with no feeling for him.
 
    Or maybe if she left it like that and the situation would take care of itself, it would be more in her favour. When she dated someone else, Sidoreli would understand that he had misunderstood her.
 
    She vented easily, feeling in agony from the possible inferiority of being involved in such a situation, and she couldn't shake the feeling of being affected by the doubt that he wanted to stay as far away from her as possible because he thought she was obsessed with him, and she wanted to clarify that misunderstanding, but the suspicion that maybe it was her who was misunderstanding everything, and Sidoreli didn't even think about her in any sense, stopped her and convinced her to not do anything so that the situation would be self-explained.
 
    "I thought about bringing Monika here next week when she returns to Albania," Visara said after the event, while going down the stairs to the first floor.
 
    "Did she text you?" Anila was keeping her eyes on the stairs.
 
    "Yes. She said that she had booked the ticket yesterday in Rome and was coming to Albania for her birthday. I'm thinking of giving her a set of products from here. What about you?" Visara asked about their aunt's daughter.
 
    "I'm not sure."
 
    The two sisters were approaching the entrance of the bar, where Sidoreli was with some company employees.
 
    "How about a tattoo? She told me she would love to get one done when she comes to Albania."
 
    "Stop talking." Anila ordered rigorously in a low voice while they passed by the tattooist.
 
    "Why? Oh!" Visara recalled the reason loudly. "I forgot you hate people who get tattoos done."
 
    Anila felt her heart skip a beat from the scolding and turned her head towards her sister to look at Sidoreli with a stern and judgmental look on her face.
 
    Visara, unknowingly, had complicated her situation even more. Anila was trying to show with disdain that she was not interested in the tattoo artist, and her sister was proving to Sidoreli exactly the opposite.
 
    Now he would think that Anila had deliberately told her sister to say that when they approached him, to get his attention.
 
    "Didn't I tell you to stop talking?" Anila demanded accounting as soon as they went out into the yard. "Why didn't you listen?"
 
    "What problem did I cause?" Visara looked at her, confused. "Anila, you have become exactly like a Nazi German. One does not dare say even a word to you, because you would jump straight into their throat," she complained with lost patience.
 
    "Ladies, are you leaving?"
 
    They both formed polite smiles for Anila's boss when she got out of the building and went near them.
 
    "Yes," Visara said amicably.
 
    "Come and have a drink." Ilirjana invited them to join her. "Some other colleagues are coming too."
 
    "No, thank you." Anila took the relay from her sister when Visara was just about to accept the invitation. "We have to go," she added dryly.
 
    "Unless you're going to meet your boyfriend, I won't leave you," Ilirjana said seriously in a humorous tone, and Anila thought she had a favourable opportunity to set boundaries with Sidoreli, whichever of the two was being misunderstood in that story, as soon as she noticed him approaching her, to get out of the company together with Alketa.
 
    "Well, I've got the permission in my pocket, then," Anila replied with a laugh. "It's my boyfriend, who I'm going to meet," she said with a raised voice, and she prayed that Visara would not cause the next scene by looking at her strangely and revealing that she was lying.
 
    "I agree to give up." Ilirjana raised her hands in surrender. "Another time, then."
 
    "Goodbye." They smiled at Ilirjana, who greeted them, and then went to the bar.
 
    Anila grabbed Visara's arm when she turned to leave the yard.
 
    "Wait! Let's wait for a while."
 
    "Great God! What's going on with you?" Visara couldn't understand her behaviour.
 
    "Can't you wait two more seconds? Why do you have to be dramatic about everything?" Anila replied angrily.
 
    "Why did you lie?"
 
    "How do you know I lied?"
 
    "Oh, you have a boyfriend?" Visara looked surprised and then rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Ania, you don't have a stranger in front of you. Unless you're talking to someone online, and that's the reason you stay locked in your room the whole time."
 
    Anila didn't give her any more clarification. She saw that Sidoreli and his sister had left and headed towards her car. She breathed a sigh of relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and guessed what he was thinking about her now. If he really had doubts that she liked him, now it would have been proven that he had misunderstood her gaze. If he hadn't been misunderstood, that false information about her personal life would serve as proof that he didn't have to think even for a second about having feelings of romantic love for her, if it came to that point, because Anila loved someone else.
 
    She didn't even want to think that Sidoreli had understood her lie, and she was back at the beginning with zero effort.